Mob FilesPublic-domain archive of American organized crime
An open black case with a fitted tray holding jars, vials and a probe, with a hinged metal plate folded down below.
Open the full imageJPG, 1400 × 896 px, 0.2 MB

Fingerprint kit, 1930s (FBI artifact)

FBI photograph of a leather fingerprint kit the Bureau dates to the 1930s, with a magnifier, brushes, vials of powder and chemicals, a probe, a pad of paper and a drop-down metal plate for spreading ink.

Date
1930/1939
Kind
photograph
Source
FBI, History: Artifacts
Retrieved
2026-10-12
Rights
Published by the FBI on fbi.gov as an artifact photograph with no third-party credit; a work of the United States government, public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105. The copy stored here is the FBI's web image converted to JPEG.

The FBI lists the kit’s contents as a magnifier, brushes, vials for fingerprint powder and other chemicals, a bottle labeled “fixatif,” a probe, a pad of paper, and a drop-down metal plate for spreading ink. The page, an Artifact of the Month for October 2016, dates the kit to the 1930s.

The kit is generic Bureau equipment. The FBI page does not tie it to a named case, and this page does not either. It belongs to the same decade as the cases elsewhere in this section.

Object: Leather fingerprint kit with contents
Maker: not stated
Date: 1930s
Provenance: held by the FBI
Appears in: FBI, Artifact of the Month, October 2016

item"How to Take Fingerprints," Bureau of Investigation booklet, 1932 (FBI artifact)FBI photograph of the 1932 Government Printing Office booklet "How to Take Fingerprints," issued by the Bureau of Investigation for local peace officers. Hoover's foreword calls it "the fourth issue of this pamphlet."